What a tangled web we are weaving

I was born in Nairobi. But not according to my Wikipedia entry which, until last month, stated categorically that I was born in Rome. Another line said I am anti-semitic. Wikipedia allows anyone to contribute to any entry and operates on the premise of cumulative knowledge. With so many people reading each entry, mistakes are quickly corrected. The anti-semitism slur was soon deleted ('unsourced information').

But when I wanted to correct the other entry, the contributor responsible stuck to his guns. How did he know that the person complaining was really Cristina Odone? he asked. Only when I sent him a photocopy of my passport, birthplace prominently displayed, did he reluctantly accept my version of my life.

Last week, Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the worldwide web, warned that the internet was becoming a 'place where untruths start to spread more than truths'. We seem to inhabit parallel universes. While our day-to-day life is dragged ever more under the surveillance of CCTV cameras, data bases, loyalty cards and identity checks, the web spirals out of control. Perhaps, indeed, it is because ordinary citizens feel so scrutinised in everything they do (someone somewhere knows not only where you shop and what you buy, but also where you live and what kind of health problems afflict you) that they run riot on the web, forging imaginary identities and spinning fanciful tales.

Picture the OAP battling to open his post office card account from which he can draw his pension in cash. He has been using his post office for more than 30 years and everyone recognises him. Yet, because of draconian anti-fraud and money-laundering regulations, he has to present his passport to prove that he is not someone wishing to put dirty money into circulation, even though the account he is drawing from is only accessible to the government.

Contrast this world of atoms, with its fact-checkers at every step, to the world of electrons. Here, all is freewheeling and totally trusting. David Cox, who has a popular blog on the Comment Is Free website, has had a string of contributors who, in contesting his views, claim expertise in the subject at hand. But can such an expert be validated or is the person writing, say, as Ella7 who purports to be a female Californian environmentalist teaching at the University of San Diego, in fact a British man with no degrees to his name?

Humphrys harrumphs

Here, there and everywhere, John Humphrys pops up: witnessing the war in Iraq for the Today programme, investigating faith for Radio 4, protecting the English language from abusers in his book, Beyond Words. So he deserves a knees-up.

His publishers at Hodder and Stoughton thought so and gave him a swanky dinner to launch his book. And Rod Liddle, who used to edit Humphrys on Today, thought so too and invited him to the christening of his baby or, rather, he invited Humphrys to the party following the christening.

Humphrys claimed to be hurt by this: wasn't he good enough to participate in the holy ceremony? he asked Liddle at his book launch. 'I thought there might be a clash of egos between you and God,' Liddle explained. A shame, suggested Simon Hoggart: the Humphrys interview with God, replete with interruptions, would have been an almighty punch-up.

Any identity is yours at the click of a mouse. You can disguise yourself in any chat room as a thirtysomething babe-magnet with pecs to die for. You can introduce all kinds of fantasy elements when you write your profiles on My Space and Second Life - from fake friends to fake pastimes. And no one will be able to catch you out.